And then we passed into the grounds of the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis, the domain of Abbot Hubert, and his prior, Michelangelo di Bologna.
• • •
We passed under the iron teeth of the gate. The children marveled at the great, wide bailey, where horses were being led to stables. Then they saw the facade of the huge church, and their mouths dropped open even farther. It is one of the great sights of Christendom—hundreds of thousands of stones, perfectly hewn and fit together, shimmering in the sun like a waterfall on a cliff face. But we had no time to gape, for I did not know where our enemy was—and indeed, I was right to worry.
“Follow me,” I said, “keep the dog close, and go as quickly as you can.”
I hurried them forward, past the refectory, the infirmary, the stairwell to the crypt. Into the small cloister, through a hallway to the large cloister. Faster and faster we walked. Every brother I saw coming from a doorway or walking up a stair I thought, at first, was Michelangelo.
The children, too, were peering at the black-robed, hooded men praying or carrying books—hoping that if the wicked monk himself were here, at least we would see him before he saw us.
I felt a tug on my sleeve. I turned. Jeanne was pointing.
Across the great cloister, a mountain of flesh, with red hair and bristling whiskers and reddish eyes, strode along with an air of lazy importance, his head thrown back, his whiskers twitching, his eyes roving over the faces of the praying monks as if he owned them. As if they were praying to him.
We all stopped. I don’t know why. There is something about that man’s power that makes one stop and stare.
And as we stared, his gaze crossed the cloister. His great body came to a halt. He squinted past the bare trees in the cloister garden, trying to penetrate the shadows of the columns where we stood.
And then he stepped from the covered walkway onto the grass. His walk was no longer lazy. It was vigorous. And fast. Very fast.
We stood as still as the columns that had not hidden us.
When Michelangelo was halfway across the cloister, I came to my senses. “Run, children! RUN!”
They took off. Michelangelo di Bologna looked surprised, as if he could not believe someone would dare run from him. Then he began to run, too, and I would not be lying to tell you that the ground actually shook with each footfall.
I turned and sprinted after the children, and an instant later I was pushing ahead of them, to lead the way. We turned off the cloister and ran down a long hallway. A monk was coming down the dormitory stairs, and God forgive me, I shoved him to one side. Gwenforte ran out ahead of me, then fell behind so I could lead, then got out ahead again. Hallway, staircase, cloister, hallway, stair—I was getting dizzy and fearfully afraid that I was lost. I kept glancing over my shoulder. Sometimes I could see Michelangelo, puffing after us in the distance. Other times, he was too far back.
Finally we came to a dark, empty corridor, where the stone is particularly old and shadowed. I ran to the great wooden door at the center of the doorway and banged on it with all my might.
And I heard the sweet voice that I so longed to hear.
“Enter,” said Abbot Hubert.
I pushed the door open and shoved the children through. “Tell him I sent you!” I hissed at them. “Tell him everything!”
“Where are you going?” Jeanne demanded.
“To head off Michelangelo!” And with that, I ran back the way I had come to meet the enemy.
The door slammed behind me.
“And that is my part in the great journey of Jeanne, Jacob, William, and Gwenforte,” the Scottish chronicler concludes.
Everyone around the table begins shouting at once—“What? What happens next? What happened with Michelangelo? Did he punish you? Did he attack you? What about Hubert? And the children? And the dog? What happens!?!”
The only person not shouting is the little nun. I am not surprised.
“Please, Sister,” I say, “tell us what happened behind Abbot Hubert’s closed door.”
Her mouth forms into a question mark. “However would I know that?” she says. But her eyes are glinting with pleasure.
“You seem,” I say, “to know all sorts of secrets. Please, Sister, share them with us.”
She looks at me like I’m being very impertinent. And then she says, “Very well.”
HAPTER 14
The Fourth Part of the Nun’s Tale
The children found themselves standing in a dark room.
At the center of the room was a great wooden table. A dozen candles stood on it—the only light. Wax dripped down the sticks, gathering in craggy hills at their bases.
Behind the candles stood a man.
He was short, with thin hair and small, blinking, gray, honest eyes. They had no ability to deceive. That was clear, right away. The children instantly knew that this was the most honest man they would ever meet.
“What is this?” he demanded. “Who are you? And what are you doing in here?”
“I am sorry, Father,” William said, kneeling, and the other children followed his example. Even Gwenforte sat down. “We were brought here by Brother Geraldus Scotus.”
“You were?” Abbot Hubert blinked his gray eyes. “Where is he?”
“He had to go . . . uh . . . deal with something,” William said. The oblate felt awful hiding even an iota of truth from this honest man. “We have never had the honor of meeting, Father Hubert, but I am William, son of Lord Richard d’Orange.”
The abbot blinked. “Are you? You’re so . . . big!”
William nodded, a little taken aback by the banality of the comment. He had expected something different, a little more penetrating, from the great abbot Hubert.
“And who are you little people?” the abbot asked.
Jeanne bowed her head. “I am Jeanne, of Ville Sainte-Geneviève.”
Jacob bowed his head as well. “And I am Jacob, son of Moisé and Bathsheba.”
The abbot leaned over his heavy desk, blinking past all the candles. “A Jew?”
“Yes, Father,” Jacob said. He wasn’t sure whether, as a Jew, he was allowed to refer to the abbot as “father”—either in his religion or theirs—but he figured it was safest to do whatever William did.
“And is that a dog—in the abbey?” Hubert asked, incredulous.
William was rather put out by this level of questioning. “It is, Father. You see, Gerald told us to bring this dog before you. The story is—”
BANG!
The children jumped a foot. Someone had knocked on the door. Rather loudly.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
William leapt to his feet, spun around, and spied a wooden bar standing by the door. “May I, Father?” he asked, and without waiting for permission, he placed the wood in its braces, barring the door behind them.
“Just what is going on?” the poor, honest abbot demanded, utterly befuddled now.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Jeanne stared at him desperately. How could such a weak fool have risen to the highest post in the French church?
“Father,” William began again, speaking more quickly now, as the knocking grew louder. “This dog is Gwenforte, of Ville Sainte-Geneviève. She has been venerated there as a saint ever since her martyrdom ten years ago.”
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Jeanne glanced over her shoulder at the door.
A light kindled in the abbot’s eyes. A light of recognition.
“Someone,” William barreled on, “we believe Prior Michelangelo, sent men to Ville Sainte-Geneviève to desecrate the holy dog’s grave. This girl, Jeanne, had a vision it would happen.”
BANG! BANG! BANG! The knocking was growing louder. More insistent.
“She went to the grove where the dog was buried, and when she
arrived, she found Gwenforte, the dead dog, resurrected like Lazarus, standing on her own grave.”
The abbot’s eyes had grown wider and wider. His thin, gray eyebrows began to climb up his forehead.
The banging was deafening now. BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
“The men sent to desecrate the grave took it upon themselves to murder this saintly dog.” William was warming up, his words ebbing and flowing like the sermon of a wandering preacher. “And this little girl risked her own life, over and over again, to save it.” Jeanne put her arm around Gwenforte’s neck.
BANG!
BANG!
The abbot’s eyebrows now nearly mingled with his thinning hair. He shook his head in wonder. They could barely hear William now over the banging. The door rattled on its hinges.
The abbot came around the great table and knelt next to the dog. Jeanne released Gwenforte. Hubert put his hand on Gwenforte’s head. She stared up from her black eyes into his gray ones. “I’m so confused,” he said.
Jeanne sighed. Jacob looked awkwardly at the floor. William prepared to explain it all again.
The abbot went on. “Why are you telling me this?”
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
“And why bring me this dog?” he said, stroking Gwenforte’s head, his brows knitted with befuddlement.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
“When I was the one that ordered her killed?”
The children did not move. Abbot Hubert stared into Gwenforte’s eyes, still stroking her head. The banging continued, unheeded.
“We cannot have peasants worshipping false saints, can we?” he asked. “Especially not dogs!” He laughed and reached behind him for something on the table, still stroking Gwenforte’s head. “I have heard of you, too, children. They claim you are performing miracles. Healing? Soothsaying? Acts of strength beyond all credibility?”
The children did not respond. They saw that with one hand, the abbot still stroked Gwenforte’s head. With the other, he had taken from the table a sharp instrument like a knife. The banging continued.
“Let me tell you a story,” the abbot said. “It’s a private story. Almost like a secret, between myself, my confessor Prior Michelangelo, and God. I can tell you, can’t I? You won’t tell anyone?”
The children’s faces were frozen, staring at the sharp object—a tool for removing waxen seals—that was now touching the soft underside of Gwenforte’s throat.
“When I was a lad,” the abbot began, his voice low beneath the ceaseless banging, his eyes as honest and clear as ever, “I had a friend. A best friend—and yet a rival, too, as best friends often are. We attended university in Paris, and it was impossible to tell who was more brilliant, he or I. We wanted to know everything. To plumb the depths of the divine plan, to understand all creation, from the Garden of Eden until today.” Still, Hubert stroked Gwenforte’s head. “One day, we made a vow, this friend and I. We vowed that whoever died first should return after the space of one week and tell the other whether the afterlife is indeed real, as the church teaches us, or whether Epicurus is right, and we are nothing but particles, millions of atoms, bouncing off one another. To keep this promise, we began to explore the black arts, magic, spells, and sacrifices that would give us freedom, so it was said, to return from that dark, final country.”
The candle flames stood straight and tall in the dark room, quivering only when the banging shook the chamber. Hubert’s gray eyes flicked to the thick wooden door and back to the children. Still, with one hand, he stroked Gwenforte, and with the other he held the knife to her soft white throat.
“Well, my friend died very young—far before I expected to lose him. I was much grieved, but also I was afraid. I was no longer certain I wanted him to return from the grave. A week went by, and he did not. I was relieved and only a little disappointed. Clearly, the ancient philosophers had been right. We are but atoms, and there is no life hereafter.”
The banging had become frantic again. Jeanne was gazing at the candlelight reflecting off Hubert’s blade.
“A year went by. Two,” the pale, gray-eyed abbot went on. “And then, one night, as I lay in bed, he appeared before me.”
“Who? Your friend?” William could not help but ask.
“Indeed, young oblate. My friend.”
“Truly?”
“Do not doubt, as I did,” the abbot said, his voice gentle, his eyes honest as ever. They could all see it. He was not lying. “My friend appeared before me, and so horrible a sight you have never, ever seen. His flesh was white and rent in strips, his innards hung from his body, his teeth had been shattered like glass. But his eyes were the worst. His eyes were deep and sleepless and so, so desperate.” The abbot’s voice cracked. “He called to me and said he was sorry. Sorry that he had not come sooner. Sorry that he had led me to practice the ways of the Devil. Sorry that he had led me to the brink of Hell. I begged him to explain. He said he had been tortured and tormented in the Inferno since the day he died and only now had he been granted the right to come and see me, and to warn me, but soon he would be plunged back into that endless despair, never to emerge again. ‘Turn from error,’ he said to me. ‘Turn from arrogance. Commit yourself to God, become a monk, be as pure as you can be. Every day of your life fight the evil of the Devil.’ Then he flicked his hand at me, and blood flew from an open wound and struck me here, on the chest.”
With the hand that held the blade, Abbot Hubert pulled down his habit just far enough to reveal three deep, pitted scars, as if droplets of acid had fallen on his chest.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
The knocking was more frantic than ever.
But Hubert was not disturbed. “And so I have never forgotten the torment of my dearest friend. And whenever the Devil leads poor sinners astray with black magic and false saints, I rescue them from their error.” He stared at the children with his frank gray eyes, willing them to understand. More banging. His voice trembled. “That is why I ordered your grove destroyed. And that is why I must kill your dog, sweet as she seems.” He stroked Gwenforte’s head, and she stared up at him, apparently hypnotized, immobilized by his words and his soothing hand—save for a faint tremor in her legs. “Once she is dead, I will have you three burned as well, as false saints and practitioners of the arts of the Devil.” He said it as though it were the only possible option among many very sad ones. “Some will say you were saints, martyred for your beliefs. But we will know the truth.” The hand that held the blade pressed into Gwenforte’s throat. A bead of blood emerged from the white fur and ran down the smooth steel. Gwenforte whined and tried to shy away, but small, honest Hubert tightened his grip and pressed harder.
BANG!
This bang was different. It was louder and was accompanied by the sound of tearing metal, and a great BOOM followed it. Everyone, Gwenforte included, looked to the doorway.
There, as large and red and furious as the Devil himself, stood Michelangelo di Bologna. He strode onto the door—which had been ripped from its hinges, had broken through the door braces, and lay on the ground. It appeared to be smoking.
“HUBERT!” Michelangelo bellowed, his voice deep and rich, with just a hint of Italian in it. “Put down that knife! Stand up! Release the dog!”
To the children’s amazement, Hubert did exactly as Michelangelo instructed. He rose to his feet, letting the blade fall to the stone floor. Gwenforte bounded over to Jeanne. A small red line ran across her throat, but the cut was not deep.
“You are a sinner, Hubert,” Michelangelo said. “You know it, I know it, God knows it. Do not compound your sin on the flesh of innocents! It shall not cleanse!”
“They are worshippers of the Devil!” Hubert objected earnestly. “Practitioners of black magic!”
“Who? These children? The dog? Don’t be an idiot!” Michelangelo’s eyes were blazing like the fires of Hell itself. Or ma
ybe, Jeanne suddenly thought, like the fires of Heaven. “Children, come with me! Hubert, do not test my patience again!”
Jeanne, with Gwenforte at her side, hurried to the smoking, broken door. Jacob and William followed as quickly as they could.
As they stepped over the door—it was hot—and into the hallway, they saw Gerald, cowering against the opposite wall.
“Michelangelo!” he cried, rising to his feet. “What have you done? What are you doing with these children?”
Michelangelo peered down from his massive, ruddy, whiskered face onto the pale Scotsman. “Gerald,” he said, “you are a good man. You mean well. But you are a fool. Stay out of the way, before you do harm that cannot be undone.” With that, Michelangelo continued down the hallway. Jeanne looked at the cowering Gerald, and then after the great prior of Saint-Denis.
She had a decision to make and she had just a moment to make it. Follow the red monk who had saved them—but had terrified her dreams for years? Or ask Gerald, their sworn protector, to take them somewhere far away from this confusing and frightening place?
And then, Gwenforte made the decision for her.
The white greyhound darted after the great red monk and trotted happily at his heels. Jeanne stared for a moment. Then she and the other children hurried to catch up.
Sometimes, it turns out, the most important decisions in life are made by your dog.
• • •
They followed Michelangelo di Bologna through the corridors of Saint-Denis, one after another, too quickly to have any idea where they were or where they were going. Finally they passed through a thick wooden door, which Michelangelo used a long iron key to bolt behind them, and out into a narrow alley. They were outside the abbey walls. Michelangelo led them down the muddy lane and veered off into another.
There, he came to a green door. Jacob noticed that on the doorframe there was a small, oblong box. He pulled up short. “Is that a mezuzah?” he asked.
Michelangelo ignored him, knocking with his enormous fist—it was nearly the size of Jeanne’s head—on the flimsy door.